[SOLVED] Upgrade from my nearly 6 year old PC

[RebeccaUK]

* updated title, I couldn't do math originally.. * 😆

Hiya,

This is my current PC and I'd like to upgrade and I have a few questions.

These are my current specs -

CPU - i5 4590 - 3.30Ghz
Motherboard - H97M-D3H
Memory - 2x4GB 1600Mhz
GPU - R9 290 4GB

I had a look at current prices for DDR3 vs DDR4 memory and they're very similar, so I think I'll just go with DDR4 and a new system.

I'm not sure exactly what to go for as I only keep up to date with new computer hardware when I'm in the market for a new one. Initially so far I've looked at the i5-10400, or maybe even an i7-10700 - would I really see that much difference using an i7?

I was thinking of jumping all the way up to 64GB memory, could this be overkill? I get very memory starved on my 8GB these days..

I've no idea what AMD are up to.. I can't make sense of their naming schemes and what is new with "Ryzen"!

I want to keep my GPU for now as I rarely play games, and when I do they're often not modern ones. I think the latest title I've played a lot is Fallout 4 and that runs well enough. GPUs look stupidly expensive compared to when I bought my R9 290 back in 2014 for £180.. Would I have any problems running it on a new motherboard?

My primary applications are mainly photo editing - Lightroom & Photoshop. Also a lot of web browsing, I tend to be quite lazy with closing Chrome tabs down, etc.

One thing I'd like to do is reduce the overall heat, I see there are "T" variants of CPUs that are clocked a lot lower and consume less power. Would this be a wise purchase, would I actually see a performance decrease if I went with a 10th gen T variant of an i7 compared to my 4th gen i5?

My overall budget for a new CPU, motherboard & memory is at most £500 - that is if an i7 really will give me a huge increase in performance over an i5 - if the performance increase is only going to be an extra 5% but costing £150 more then I'll not bother..

Thank you for any help you can offer, much appreciated! 😊

 

[maxamillionfeettall]

Photoshop is largely single threaded, so Intel will have the upper hand, lightroom on the other hand can use many cores and cpu's with lots of cores will reduce export time by a fair amount. Though lightroom with general use will feel slightly faster in person compared to ryzen, but at this point, both ryzen and intel 10th gen will be a substantial improvement over your i5 in lightroom.

You really don't need to go to 64gb ram unless you're rendering extremely large images or 8k video. You can simply use a small ssd and use it as a scratch disk.

T variant parts, although they state being low power, this is only at their base clock(making them really slow), they will boost to higher speeds under load, effectively negating any power or temperature savings.
If you're really concerned about heat and power, your gpu is the first thing I'd get rid of. The 290x uses 300w under load and ~70w idle. An equivalent modern gpu with slighly better performance, the 1650Super, consumes only 160w at load and 50w at idle.
You wont have issues running it on a modern board.

I'm assuming that your psu is equally as old and needs replacing?

For AMD:
PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 3.6 GHz 6-Core Processor (£147.90 @ Amazon UK)
CPU Cooler: ARCTIC Freezer 34 CPU Cooler (£25.98 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: MSI X470 GAMING PLUS MAX ATX AM4 Motherboard (£104.97 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3600 CL18 Memory (£75.98 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: SeaSonic Core GC 650 W 80+ Gold Certified ATX Power Supply (£80.80 @ CCL Computers)
Total: £435.63
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-06-20 17:52 BST+0100


For Intel:
PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: Intel Core i5-10600 3.3 GHz 6-Core Processor (£229.99 @ CCL Computers)
CPU Cooler: ARCTIC Freezer 34 CPU Cooler (£25.98 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: Asus TUF GAMING B460-PRO (WI-FI) ATX LGA1200 Motherboard (£129.97 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory (£69.46 @ Scan.co.uk)
Power Supply: SeaSonic Core GC 650 W 80+ Gold Certified ATX Power Supply (£80.80 @ CCL Computers)
Total: £536.20
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-06-20 17:57 BST+0100

To get the most out intel cpu's, you'll need to oc the ram, which I believe this asus supports, otherwise it's capped at 2933mhz. The intel will be about the same speed as the 3600, maybe slightly slower with capped ram speed.

I'd personally go with the AMD build, and use the remaining funds for 500gb nvme ssd

 

[RebeccaUK]

Thanks for your advice, that's helpful! 😊

My PSU is a Be Quiet L8 600W which I bought at the same time as the rest of the kit, I was hoping to not swap out. I've just done my math on when I actually bought the system and it was 5 years 7 months ago, so not quite the 7 years as I thought initially!

I'll have a look at another SSD. I've got 2 already which were both bought within the past few years but they're both the SATA type fitting which I believe aren't as fast as the newer ones mounted directly onto the motherboard?

 

[maxamillionfeettall]

Alright, I looked into the l8, seems the protections it has are adequate and trigger correctly when needed, so if it were to fail, it would probably take nothing with it. It only had a 3 year warranty, so your nearly 3 years past that haha. It's also built by HEC( regarded as a inferior manafacture). It tested relatively well for a outdated group regulated unit, though it did fail a cross load test with the 5v rail falling out of spec. Since its 3 years out of warranty and group regulated with a failed cross load test, I really can't recommend using it in a modern system.

Newer nvme drives are a lot faster in data transfer, but in applications, it's largely negligible. At this point, nvme drives are about the same price of sata drives, while also not requiring cables and just mounts to the board easily, so might as well go with a nvme imo. But you can still skip it, though I do recommend dedicating a portion of a ssd as a PS scratch disk.

 

[Math Geek]

nvme is a lot more costly than an ssd. you get almost twice the space for your money with an ssd drive. though prices are coming down quickly on nvme drives. i don't see a reason to get one unless you have the extra play room in the budget and just want one. they bring almost no gain to the system under normal day to day use but cost a lot more.

i'd go AMD as well, in fact i just did myself when i went from a 4690k system to a new one. i chose the 3700x with 32 gb or ram wince i work a lot with VM's and use a ton of resources multi-tasking. but a 3600 is a great chip that can handle a lot of work.

here's what i went with.

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 3700X 3.6 GHz 8-Core Processor (£250.97 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: Gigabyte B450 I AORUS PRO WIFI Mini ITX AM4 Motherboard (£116.98 @ Laptops Direct)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3600 CL18 Memory (£75.98 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £443.93
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-06-20 19:42 BST+0100

everything worked right out of the box and has been great so far. plenty of room to get more ram or drop to the 3600 and save even more. the stock cooler is fine for the chip but you can also go with 3rd party one if you wish.

 

[maxamillionfeettall]

nvme is a lot more costly than an ssd. you get almost twice the space for your money with an ssd drive.

That's not true, it is only true with premium drives like a 970 evo or inexpensive dramless drives like a su630.

A MX500 500gb costs £57.99 while a P1 or P2 nvme cost £65. Not really 'a lot more costly'

 

[Math Geek]

ok works for me

just because it's not worth it to me, doesn't mean others have to feel the same!!!

 

[RebeccaUK]

So I may as well get a new GPU if I'm getting a PSU then.. 😊

The 1650 Super looks good, and not too pricey. I found this at the end of a comparison article but I don't think it will bother me much at all, getting the same performance as my R9 290 out of something that draws less power and produces a lot less heat is a win for me. My R9 290 runs very hot under load, needs all of my fans spinning and can heat up my room quite considerably when running for a long time.

"Our Verdict: Upgrading from R9 290 to GTX 1650 SUPER is not recommended as it is less than 30% of improvement in performance. In general, a reasonable upgrade is between 30% and 50% or more to justify the purchase of new hardware. The price/performance ratio is much better for GTX 1650 SUPER ."

Sometimes I've found the prospect of playing games a bit unbearable and a reason why I don't bother much.. "here comes the airplane engines again." I've got a relatively well soundproofed case as well 😆

 

[maxamillionfeettall]

The psu I listed is far superior to the old one, but that doesn't mean you HAVE to upgrade the gpu lol.
I was merely comparing how gpu's now are considerably more power efficient(Nvidia, AMD gpu's are still kind inefficient). If the main drawback is noise, then you will have to look at individual reviews, as each different model of gpu have different fans and noise levels.

Alternatively, if you don't mind some hands-on work, you may be able to find an after market gpu cooler like the Arctic Accelero Xtreme III for around £50 if you're lucky.

If you install msi afterburner, you can control the fan curve, and maybe set it so it wont run like a jet engine, but I think the 290x might be too hot a card for that :/


If you are earnestly thing of getting a 1650S or 1660, or otherwise, you can reduce the psu a bit to something like a txm550 or if you can find one, a corsair cx550w for around £55-£65(they're currently overpriced at £75).

Btw, you wont escape the "heat up your room after a while", all gpu's will heat up you room eventually.

 

[madmatt30]

I would personally rebuild completely from scratch, meaning case, psu, everything.

Sell your current system in fully working condition, you'll get £250-300 for it and that ups your budget considerably to entirely new and current components.